Ashley Highfield, chief executive of Johnston Press, says many of the local newspapers that have closed were opportunistically launched to mop up advertising.
Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian

The chief executive of Johnston Press has said the number of local newspapers closed over the last decade has been “blown out of all proportion”, with most of the 300 being shut not “papers of record” that are vital to most UK communities.

Ashley Highfield said it is too simplistic to look at the overall number of closures.

“The regional press has closed very few papers over the last few years,” said Highfield, speaking to the House of Commons culture select committee on Wednesday. “This is something that is often blown out of all proportion. The papers that have been closed were often the freesheets that were opened in the 1990s to mop up low-yielding advertising revenues when the times were good.”

Highfield said the titles that had closed were opportunistically launched and existed alongside the far more important “paper of record” that most communities continue to rely on.

“The titles have been closed were those titles: weekly freesheets, usually in communities where a publisher has a paid-for title as well but wished to ring-fence out low yielding, often classified, ads into a secondary title. I think you’ll find the numbers of papers of record that have closed over the last decade is incredibly low. That is something that needs to be understood.”